A depressing failure to protect the ocean from exploitation

‘If protective law had been put into effect as it should have been, we wouldn’t be facing such a daunting ecological crisis in the ocean today.’ Photograph: Future Publishing/Barcroft Media/Getty Images

It’s disheartening and depressing that UN member states couldn’t reach the agreement needed for a treaty to protect biodiversity in the high seas (UN ocean treaty summit collapses as states accused of dragging out talks, 21 March). The longer they can’t agree, the longer the greedy plunder of remote seas continues.

And yet the waters and wildlife in the high seas are already protected by international law and have been for 30 years, specifically by articles 117 and 118 of the UN Law of the Sea.